Italian Cypress

Cupressus sempervirens L.

kyu-PRESS-us sem-per-VIR-ens

Conifers - Cupressaceae

Explanation of name: The generic name is classical. Sempervirens means evergreen.

Natural range: Mediterranean

Recognition: Needles scalelike, whorled, blunt-tipped. Overall shape of these trees is distinctive: narrowly spire-shaped. Female cones about the size and shape of a golf ball. Color varies with cultivars but is often grayish or bluish. (Mexican Cypress is C. lusitanica Mill.) ‘Stricta’ is a common very narrow cultivar (WA1).

Landscape uses: Formal and Mediterranean in appearance. Useful in Italianate landscapes, in symmetrical clipped settings and as exclamation points, often against walls. Used more in north Florida, seen occasionally in South Florida